Since giving up its long-standing pronatalist stance on the family in the
1970s, the Mexican government has increasingly viewed population
control as a facet of the economic and social development of the country
(Singh 1994: 217–8; Merrick 1985: 1–3). The introduction of family
planning services was intended to bring about large decreases in the
national fertility rate which came to be seen as an impediment to the
modernization of the country. Since the widespread introduction of family
planning services a major disparity has developed in the uptake of these
services between urban areas, where contraceptive prevalence rates are
high, and rural, and particularly indigenous areas, where the uptake of
services remains very low. After the development of an international
consensus on reproductive health at the International Conference on
Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, which brokered a truce
between reproductive health advocates and defenders of population
control under the umbrella of sustainable development (cf. Hartmann
1995: 131), Mexico introduced a new programme of reproductive health
in which it legitimized both concerns (Poder Ejecutivo Federal 1996: iii).
In this way, population control is retained as a legitimate policy goal with
respect to the modernization of the country (cf. Dirección General de
Planificación Familiar 1995: 7), whilst at the same time the concerns of
reproductive health advocates are also addressed through the adoption
of an informed choice agenda.
2 This agenda, based upon respect for
individual and cultural beliefs for the improvement of health and social

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